The ZENNCity electric car which would be the first vehicle to use these batteries has a 52kwh 250 mile range EESU that would only weigh 280 pounds.

EEStor is building a state of the art pilot production plant that is very significant. The Zenn Motors CEO and others have seen the EEStor plant.

EEStor is to deliver a production prototype off of the production line by the end of 2009. Once they deliver a production prototype it is a production unit that is production ready.

EEStor stores their energy at around 3500V. Zenn Motors would step that down to operating voltages likely in the 600 V range. Very very high efficiency drive system operating at much higher voltages than any other current EV drive system. That does a number of things. It increases the drive efficiency, it makes the components somewhat smaller, and ultimately less expensive and obviously for mass commercialization that’s a very important consideration.

If they start delivering production-grade EESUs by the end of 09, how long will it take for the first ZENN Cities to roll of the line to commercial availability?

Commercial availability is one thing. We’ll have the car powered and demonstrated, and it will probably be a number of different platforms, and applications that well be demonstrating at that time. Our exclusivity covers a broad range of applications including retrofitting any existing 4wheel vehicle. So our intention is to truly demonstrate the breadth of opportunities that the technology represents. We have been for the last 18 months engineering ZEENergy drives and we’ll have a drop in application for what EEStor delivers to us because we’ve been working with them for the same amount of time to make sure what they deliver we can utilize immediately.

Its not going to take 2 minutes, but it will take days as opposed to months to get the demonstrations on line.

It will be clearly be demonstrated around the world in 2010 and commercialization is really just a question of how quickly EEStor ramps

EEStor demonstrated their permittivity milestone and then we went through our own independent verification of that particular scientific milestone. This triggered Zenn Motors $700,000 payment to make a technology agreement with EEStor, but it also triggered an option to further extend our equity position with EEStor which Zenn Motors did. Zenn Motor ownership stake increased from 3.8% to around 10.7% and at the same time Zenn Motors raised 9.3 million dollar in equity.

* Weir says he and his co-founders still own controlling interest in the company.

* On Lockheed: “I’m really in deep with Lockheed Martin.” He said Lockheed has no investment, but relationship goes way back.

* On EEStor’s value: “If we make an EESU… God only knows what we’ll be valued then.”

* He has two patents on grid-load levelling. “You can put 45 per cent more electricity on the grid and do nothing more than put our batteries on there…. that electricity could supply the electricity to the electric vehicle market as it emerges… we make wind and solar real… you can make a wind farm operate like a coal-fired plant and it’s really cost-effective.”

* On storage for PCs and handhelds. “We can take a battery for a cellphone and give you three to five times more energy storage that would never degrade on you and you can charge in seconds.”

* Electric vehicles: “It’s going to take time to emerge, but I think with ZENN Motors it’s going to be very interesting to see them grow dramatically to capture that market.”

* On portable tools: “I’m already in knee-deep with the people in the portable tool business. They’re waiting for me to emerge and they’ll come on strong.”

* On relationship with ZENN and the EESU: “They buy it for a certain amount and they put it in their car. Right now our contract says $100 per kilowatt-hour, excluding electronics, and it’s extremely attractive. You take a lithium-ion battery right now it’s $350 to $1,200 dollars… nobody is going to compete with us, certainly no lithium-ion.”